Super Junior {Siwon/Sungmin ; Endgame (1/8)}
Title: Endgame (1/8)
Fandom: Super Junior, SHINee, f(x), SNSD (AU, !secret agent)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin as main, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Henry/Amber, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 3,140
Rating: R overall
Summary: "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they aren't after you."
A/N: this is a joint work written between hambaobao and I. We're going to alternate posting and it's all going to be peppered with pretentious English major stuff because that's what we are. For example: title is the name of a Samuel Beckett play, summary is from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and there is going to be a different quote each chapter. BECAUSE WE'RE ENGLISH MAJORS, BITCHES.
Endgame
Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all
forgiven,
even though we didn’t deserve it.
- Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out - Richard Siken
The papers on the desk fluttered lightly in the breeze from the air conditioning unit. Eeteuk shot it an annoyed look, as if to cow it into submission, and then resumed his presentation. Siwon could understand the sentiment-they'd spent most of the morning in meetings already, and they didn't seem like they were going to end anytime soon. One thing they hadn’t mentioned when trying to sign you up for intelligence training: copious amounts of time spent watching mind-numbingly boring powerpoint presentations.
Opposite him, Jonghyun was doodling on his brief, every so often hiding a yawn behind the back of his hand. Having already completed sketches of a sheep, several food products and what seemed to be an artist's interpretation of Key's hairstyle, Jonghyun was working on a dinosaur destroying a small town a la Godzilla.
"If nobody has anything they'd like to add to the file," Eeteuk said, "we're going to close this case, so speak now or forever hold your peace."
Jonghyun sat up a little, almost like he had something to say, but Key beat him to the punch. "No," he said, maybe a little more forcefully than strictly necessary. "No one has anything to add. Close it. Please, for the love of God, close it."
“I just wanted to know what the chick’s real name was,” Jonghyun muttered, sinking back in his chair and continuing with his doodle, though seemingly now with a tiny Key running away from the dinosaur’s foot. “For research purposes.”
“For booty call purposes,” Key muttered back.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Eeteuk closed the file with an air of finality, then sat back in his chair. "And for the sake of everyone not killing each other, why don't you all take five. Get some water. Do anything other than bite each other's heads off."
Jonghyun snorted and Henry hit him over the back of the head. “Don’t,” he warned.
“What?” Jonghyun asked, offended. “Dude, I wasn’t even doing anything.”
“You were thinking it,” said Henry, climbing to his feet and stretching. “That look on your face never means anything good.”
"Thank you," Key said. "Whenever I tell him that, he always plays innocent. Like Aw, Kibum, what do you mean? I wasn't doing anything!" Key rolled his eyes skyward and slumped back into his chair. "He's insufferable."
“It’s why you love me, darling,” Jonghyun drawled.
Eeteuk groaned and left the room to get, presumably, some strong coffee. Siwon decided that it was probably time to start acting like the team leader, even if he could really do with some strong coffee himself. He could not remember being nearly as obnoxious when he was a rookie.
“Cut it out, guys,” he said, closing his notebook and letting his shoulders slump just enough to be more comfortable, but not enough to diminish his authority. “Giving Eeteuk-hyung an aneurysm isn’t going to be helpful to anyone.” He eyed Jonghyun and Key reproachfully. “Also, private life needs to be kept separate from business life, I should not need to keep reminding you.”
"Also," Henry added, "I'm beginning to contemplate homicide. And I'm an NIS agent. So what does that say about your antics?"
Jonghyun made a face gesture just this side of disrespectful. "Okay, okay, we get it, cool it or we'll be in time out. Sure thing, boss."
Amber, diligent as ever, finally lowered the notes she was reading from her face. “I just have some questions about this mission,” she began, but was interrupted by Key dramatically throwing his hand over her mouth and holding her quiet.
“No,” he said. “This is break time. Do you know what that word means? It means we don’t ask questions. Now get up,” - he pulled Amber to her feet - “and come get some coffee with me.”
Jonghyun watched their departing backs with an expression somewhere between annoyance and endearment. "Don't you just want to smack him sometimes?" he asked.
Siwon dropped his forehead to the desk. “Sometimes,” said Henry, “but I’m pretty sure not where you’re thinking of.”
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, too," Eeteuk said, coming back into the meeting room bearing an unnecessarily large cup of coffee and another sheaf of folders and briefing statements. "Where are Kibum and Amber?"
"Key kidnapped her," Jonghyun said helpfully. "He's a public menace, really."
Eeteuk nodded absently and dropped his stack of papers on the table. "Well, could someone please send the public menace a text message and tell him to get back here before he gets fired?"
It was an empty threat, one that Eeteuk made at least twice a week, but that didn't stop both Siwon and Henry from pulling their phones out of their pockets. Jonghyun, of course, just sat idly by, adding more detail to the miniature Key who was avoiding death by giant dinosaur.
Once Key and Amber were back in the room, both of them holding large coffees - Amber having been nice enough, or at least cunning enough, to have brought an additional one for Siwon - Eeteuk pulled a new presentation screen up, handed out a new brief, and said, “Right, we’ve just been given a new mission. It’s been handed over from the domestic affairs department.”
"Shoving their slack on us again?" Jonghyun said. "All those surprised, say aye. Alternately, all those in favor of sending it right back where it came, say aye."
“Aye,” said Kibum, more focused on his coffee than what Jonghyun was actually saying.
"I could start on interdepartmental politics and how we can't actually tell the domestic affairs bureau to shove it," Eeteuk said, "but somehow I don't feel like that would be worth my time, so why don't we just skip the complaining and move on to the actual mission contents, okay?"
This time he handed around brown paper folders to each of them. Siwon opened his and flicked through it; there was a substantial amount of information which needed to be looked through, but one phrase stood out. “Black market?” he asked, giving Eeteuk a skeptical look. “Are you sure we can’t just send this back?”
“If you look closer,” Eeteuk said, giving Siwon a reproachful look, clearly not impressed with Siwon’s lack of loyalty, “you’ll see that it’s been handed over because all intelligence points to China being involved somehow.”
"Page six," Henry said, fingermarking a spot on the page. "There's suspicion that they're ex-Tai Zi Tang members. I thought that they'd pretty much been taken down a couple of years ago?"
“So you thought,” said Amber. She was tapping her pen off the table, a sure sign that she was worried about something. “Most of the newest intel suggests that they just went underground to stay off the radar.” She flipped through some pages, skimming it quickly. “They must be coming out of the woodwork big time to be pulling stunts like this off though. I don’t have any information on this, and I’ve been keeping track of these guys for years now.”
"If you had all the information, this mission wouldn't have been handed down," Key pointed out, though not entirely unkindly. "Okay, is this just intel-gathering or are we aiming to take them down from the top?"
“Intel-gathering for now,” said Eeteuk, “though it could become something more...” He paused, searching for the right word.
“Interesting,” Jonghyun supplied helpfully.
"Stimulating," Key offered.
“Proactive,” Eeteuk finished, giving them both a quick glare. “So we’ll see how it goes for now.”
“I want to focus on the Tai Zi Tang gang,” Amber said, already getting to her feet, gathering her things up. She seemed to have taken it as a personal slight that the domestic affairs department had more information on them than she did. “Henry, you okay to help me? An extra pair of eyes to search through the Chinese would be helpful.”
"Sure," Henry agreed, maybe a little too quickly-Key scoffed under his breath, leaning over to doodle a large heart on Jonghyun's paper. Amber, luckily, didn’t hear any of it, as she was already out of the room heading for her desk to get started on her research, but Henry gave them both a glare as he gathered his things up and headed after her. If looks could kill, Siwon thought, I'd be out two team members.
Eeteuk stared after her. “I haven’t even decided who will do what yet.”
“Best to just let her get on with it,” Siwon advised. He pointed at Jonghyun, who grabbed Key’s arm as if to claim him for a partner. “No way,” said Siwon firmly. “I want you to do surveillance, see if you can find out where this market is operating from.”
“But-” began Jonghyun, only to be interrupted by a crash as the door to the meeting room flew open and someone tripped over a errant chair leg and fell against the table.
"Hi, sorry, sorry, hi, I'm here, sorry," Onew said, bowing deeply (and repeatedly) while simultaneously trying to right the chair he'd knocked over. "I guess I turned off my alarm or something, so it didn't wake me up! Ha ha... but I'm here now, what did I miss?"
“Everything,” said Key bluntly.
Onew looked up for the first time and noticed everyone giving him looks which ranged from exasperated (Eeteuk) to outright scorn (Key). Then he noticed that two of the team were missing and his face fell. “Oh,” he said.
Siwon, on his way past, pressed a folder into his hands. “Read this,” he said. “See Eeteuk if you have any questions. I’m going to get some more very strong coffee.”
"If you don't shut up," Heechul said, "I am going to stab you in the eye with your goddamn pen.”
“Someone’s touchy,” Hankyung said, grinning at Heechul from his relatively safe distance across the table. “What’s wrong, did someone piss in your non-fat cereal this morning?”
Heechul would have lunged across the table for him if Zhou Mi hadn’t chosen the perfect time in which to waltz into the room holding a tray of Starbucks, sailor hat perched jauntily atop his head. He placed them in the center of the table, as if just knowing that they could be disrupted was enough of a deterrent. "Ceasefire?" he said, smiling encouragingly at Heechul (though he also did so from a distance).
"Half-caf soy sugar-free vanilla latte?" Heechul asked.
"Of course."
"You're granted temporary exemption from my wrath," Heechul said, leaning forward to take his drink. Hankyung muttered something underneath his breath that Heechul rather impressively ignored. Instead he pushed his chair back and leaned through the open window to shout, “Are any of you fuckers coming in here so we can start this meeting or can I just go home already?”
"Aw, oppa," Luna said, smiling seraphically as she made her leisurely way over toward the table. "You sound like you didn't get any last night~"
Hankyung choked on his espresso and doubled over, coughing. As he walked to his seat, Kyuhyun whacked him helpfully on the back, then sat down, lay his head on the table, and drifted off to sleep. When Luna reached over to poke him awake, Zhou Mi waved her away. “He was awake all night,” he admonished.
“Working on what?” asked Heechul, raising an eyebrow.
“Uh, nothing. He was playing video games.”
“Then I have no sympathy. Just pour his coffee over his head and wake him up.”
"What a waste of good coffee," Jessica said, tapping her fingernails lightly on the table next to Kyuhyun's head. When it didn't do anything-as they'd all known it wouldn't-she slammed her palm down on the tabletop, making a loud slapping sound that jerked Kyuhyun instantly awake. "Yah!" she said, then smiled sweetly, tucking Kyuhyun's hair behind his ear. "Good morning, Kyuhyun-oppa."
"I think I hate you," Kyuhyun said.
“I’m sure the feeling is mutual,” said Heechul. “Has anyone seen Sungmin?”
"Briefly," Hankyung said. "Around nine this morning. He looked like a zombie, if that helps."
“He might be sleeping in the stationary cupboard,” Jessica said. “Again.”
"Sometimes Sungmin reminds me of a small woodland creature," Zhou Mi observed, contemplating the lid of his coffee cup. "He... nests. In strange places."
Heechul got to his feet, hissing colorful curses under his breath as he left the room to search for Sungmin. They heard the slide of the stationary cupboard door being opened and then closed, then a bang as Heechul checked he wasn’t behind the photocopier, and then he came back into the meeting room.
“No sign of him.”
“How long do we wait before we send out a search party?” Hankyung asked. Kyuhyun had fallen back asleep, so Hankyung reached across and snagged his coffee. "Or should we just skip the search party and start dividing his stuff up?"
“I call his porn collection,” Heechul said, sticking his hand in the air.
“He has a porn collection?” Zhou Mi asked, curious.
“I’ve never seen it but I’m sure it exists.” Heechul shrugged. “And I mean, look at him. With an innocent exterior like that? That stuff is going to be kinky.”
“For the record,” said Sungmin, walking through the door, “the day you get your hands on my porn collection is the day hell freezes over.”
“Then it’s unfortunate for you that I don’t believe in hell,” Heechul replied.
Sungmin ignored the comment, just grabbed the last coffee still left on the table and drank at least a third of it in one go. "Okay!" he said, clapping his hands together and smiling in a way that would have looked adorable if it wasn't for the dark circles under his eyes. "Let's get started."
"You have twenty minutes," Heechul said.
"Only twenty?" Sungmin blinked. "Why?"
"My attention span is only thirty minutes long, and you wasted ten of them with your woodland creature nesting habits," Heechul said, giving Sungmin an appraising glance over the lid of his coffee. "So, twenty."
Sungmin didn’t look like he could last twenty minutes on his feet anyway, but he just nodded in determination and handed out stapled booklets. “I managed to intercept some information about a new assignment that is being given to the NIS. I was all set to overlook it because it’s just something about black market ties to China but I did some digging and found something interesting.”
“Ties to China?” Hankyung asked, looking through his booklet. “The Tai Zi Tang gang? Sungmin, they don’t even exist anymore.”
“Yeah, really not important,” said Heechul. “What was the interesting part?”
“Well, there’s some talk of something about to be smuggled into Korea. Some sort of new technology, potentially a new type of weapon. Probably just some blueprints for something that’s being developed in China right now.”
"I'm still waiting for the part where you tell us why we care," Heechul said.
“We care because if NIS gets to it before us, that technology will fall in their hands. We don’t know what this is, exactly, but it’s big enough to be causing some ripples. We can’t let something this big fall into NIS hands, not when they’re under the control they’re working under right now.”
"One of these days," Jessica said, "you're going to have to explain what your grudge against the NIS is." She examined her thumbnail, then propped her chin up in one hand, elbow on the table. "We like you, Sungmin-oppa, really, but we can’t trust you blindly."
“One of these days,” Sungmin said vaguely, “but right now our priority is making sure that we complete this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Find out when and how this is being smuggled into the country, who is getting it, and then destroy it.”
“Aye aye, captain,” said Zhou Mi, apparently thrown into sailor mode thanks to the hat he was wearing.
“Do you want us to sleep before or after we finish doing your dirty work,” Heechul grumbled, picking his booklet up between forefinger and thumb and holding it like it was diseased. Anything longer than one side of paper was too much reading in Heechul’s books.
Sungmin pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes briefly. "The less you talk, the faster it gets done," he said, his tone almost hopeful-like he was expecting that to actually convince Heechul to stop complaining. "Just-please do this, Heechul, and you can get back to your beauty sleep or whatever as soon as possible."
“Alright, keep your hair on,” said Heechul, getting to his feet. He dragged Hankyung up and pulled him out of the room, saying something about gang research and how there was a reason that they kept a Chinese man in the office after all.
“Speaking of beauty sleep,” Sungmin said, “could someone please wake Kyuhyun up?”
Helpfully, Luna kicked Kyuhyun under the table. Unfortunately, she caught the wrong angle, because all that happened was that Kyuhyun slid off his chair onto the floor, where he stirred, rolled onto his back, and blinked up at Zhou Mi. "I'm getting the feeling that you're all conspiring against me actually sleeping ever again," he mumbled, apparently contemplating the relative benefits of struggling into a sitting position versus just staying on the floor. "Just leave me here, please."
"No," Jessica said sweetly, nudging his hip with the toe of her shoe. "Wakey wakey. We have work to do."
“Important hacker work,” Zhou Mi said, leaning down and poking Kyuhyun’s cheek with a finger. “Work that only you can do!”
"Get a temp," Kyuhyun suggested.
Sungmin imitated answering a phone. "Hi, I need someone to fill in for my expert hacker ex-con employee who keeps falling asleep on the job?" He made a face at Kyuhyun. "It just doesn't have that ring to it, you know?"
"All of you are horrible people," Kyuhyun said, shoving himself into a sitting position and then hauling himself up by holding onto the table. "I hope you all suffer a thousand nights of sleep paralysis and nightmares and if that fails, insomnia."
"Love you too," Luna sing-songed towards Kyuhyun's retreating back.
"Well!" Zhou Mi said, taking the lids off the leftover coffee cups so he could stack them neatly one inside the next. "That was pretty easy, don't you think?"
Sungmin just groaned.
Fandom: Super Junior, SHINee, f(x), SNSD (AU, !secret agent)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin as main, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Henry/Amber, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 3,140
Rating: R overall
Summary: "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they aren't after you."
A/N: this is a joint work written between hambaobao and I. We're going to alternate posting and it's all going to be peppered with pretentious English major stuff because that's what we are. For example: title is the name of a Samuel Beckett play, summary is from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and there is going to be a different quote each chapter. BECAUSE WE'RE ENGLISH MAJORS, BITCHES.
Endgame
Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all
forgiven,
even though we didn’t deserve it.
- Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out - Richard Siken
The papers on the desk fluttered lightly in the breeze from the air conditioning unit. Eeteuk shot it an annoyed look, as if to cow it into submission, and then resumed his presentation. Siwon could understand the sentiment-they'd spent most of the morning in meetings already, and they didn't seem like they were going to end anytime soon. One thing they hadn’t mentioned when trying to sign you up for intelligence training: copious amounts of time spent watching mind-numbingly boring powerpoint presentations.
Opposite him, Jonghyun was doodling on his brief, every so often hiding a yawn behind the back of his hand. Having already completed sketches of a sheep, several food products and what seemed to be an artist's interpretation of Key's hairstyle, Jonghyun was working on a dinosaur destroying a small town a la Godzilla.
"If nobody has anything they'd like to add to the file," Eeteuk said, "we're going to close this case, so speak now or forever hold your peace."
Jonghyun sat up a little, almost like he had something to say, but Key beat him to the punch. "No," he said, maybe a little more forcefully than strictly necessary. "No one has anything to add. Close it. Please, for the love of God, close it."
“I just wanted to know what the chick’s real name was,” Jonghyun muttered, sinking back in his chair and continuing with his doodle, though seemingly now with a tiny Key running away from the dinosaur’s foot. “For research purposes.”
“For booty call purposes,” Key muttered back.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." Eeteuk closed the file with an air of finality, then sat back in his chair. "And for the sake of everyone not killing each other, why don't you all take five. Get some water. Do anything other than bite each other's heads off."
Jonghyun snorted and Henry hit him over the back of the head. “Don’t,” he warned.
“What?” Jonghyun asked, offended. “Dude, I wasn’t even doing anything.”
“You were thinking it,” said Henry, climbing to his feet and stretching. “That look on your face never means anything good.”
"Thank you," Key said. "Whenever I tell him that, he always plays innocent. Like Aw, Kibum, what do you mean? I wasn't doing anything!" Key rolled his eyes skyward and slumped back into his chair. "He's insufferable."
“It’s why you love me, darling,” Jonghyun drawled.
Eeteuk groaned and left the room to get, presumably, some strong coffee. Siwon decided that it was probably time to start acting like the team leader, even if he could really do with some strong coffee himself. He could not remember being nearly as obnoxious when he was a rookie.
“Cut it out, guys,” he said, closing his notebook and letting his shoulders slump just enough to be more comfortable, but not enough to diminish his authority. “Giving Eeteuk-hyung an aneurysm isn’t going to be helpful to anyone.” He eyed Jonghyun and Key reproachfully. “Also, private life needs to be kept separate from business life, I should not need to keep reminding you.”
"Also," Henry added, "I'm beginning to contemplate homicide. And I'm an NIS agent. So what does that say about your antics?"
Jonghyun made a face gesture just this side of disrespectful. "Okay, okay, we get it, cool it or we'll be in time out. Sure thing, boss."
Amber, diligent as ever, finally lowered the notes she was reading from her face. “I just have some questions about this mission,” she began, but was interrupted by Key dramatically throwing his hand over her mouth and holding her quiet.
“No,” he said. “This is break time. Do you know what that word means? It means we don’t ask questions. Now get up,” - he pulled Amber to her feet - “and come get some coffee with me.”
Jonghyun watched their departing backs with an expression somewhere between annoyance and endearment. "Don't you just want to smack him sometimes?" he asked.
Siwon dropped his forehead to the desk. “Sometimes,” said Henry, “but I’m pretty sure not where you’re thinking of.”
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, too," Eeteuk said, coming back into the meeting room bearing an unnecessarily large cup of coffee and another sheaf of folders and briefing statements. "Where are Kibum and Amber?"
"Key kidnapped her," Jonghyun said helpfully. "He's a public menace, really."
Eeteuk nodded absently and dropped his stack of papers on the table. "Well, could someone please send the public menace a text message and tell him to get back here before he gets fired?"
It was an empty threat, one that Eeteuk made at least twice a week, but that didn't stop both Siwon and Henry from pulling their phones out of their pockets. Jonghyun, of course, just sat idly by, adding more detail to the miniature Key who was avoiding death by giant dinosaur.
Once Key and Amber were back in the room, both of them holding large coffees - Amber having been nice enough, or at least cunning enough, to have brought an additional one for Siwon - Eeteuk pulled a new presentation screen up, handed out a new brief, and said, “Right, we’ve just been given a new mission. It’s been handed over from the domestic affairs department.”
"Shoving their slack on us again?" Jonghyun said. "All those surprised, say aye. Alternately, all those in favor of sending it right back where it came, say aye."
“Aye,” said Kibum, more focused on his coffee than what Jonghyun was actually saying.
"I could start on interdepartmental politics and how we can't actually tell the domestic affairs bureau to shove it," Eeteuk said, "but somehow I don't feel like that would be worth my time, so why don't we just skip the complaining and move on to the actual mission contents, okay?"
This time he handed around brown paper folders to each of them. Siwon opened his and flicked through it; there was a substantial amount of information which needed to be looked through, but one phrase stood out. “Black market?” he asked, giving Eeteuk a skeptical look. “Are you sure we can’t just send this back?”
“If you look closer,” Eeteuk said, giving Siwon a reproachful look, clearly not impressed with Siwon’s lack of loyalty, “you’ll see that it’s been handed over because all intelligence points to China being involved somehow.”
"Page six," Henry said, fingermarking a spot on the page. "There's suspicion that they're ex-Tai Zi Tang members. I thought that they'd pretty much been taken down a couple of years ago?"
“So you thought,” said Amber. She was tapping her pen off the table, a sure sign that she was worried about something. “Most of the newest intel suggests that they just went underground to stay off the radar.” She flipped through some pages, skimming it quickly. “They must be coming out of the woodwork big time to be pulling stunts like this off though. I don’t have any information on this, and I’ve been keeping track of these guys for years now.”
"If you had all the information, this mission wouldn't have been handed down," Key pointed out, though not entirely unkindly. "Okay, is this just intel-gathering or are we aiming to take them down from the top?"
“Intel-gathering for now,” said Eeteuk, “though it could become something more...” He paused, searching for the right word.
“Interesting,” Jonghyun supplied helpfully.
"Stimulating," Key offered.
“Proactive,” Eeteuk finished, giving them both a quick glare. “So we’ll see how it goes for now.”
“I want to focus on the Tai Zi Tang gang,” Amber said, already getting to her feet, gathering her things up. She seemed to have taken it as a personal slight that the domestic affairs department had more information on them than she did. “Henry, you okay to help me? An extra pair of eyes to search through the Chinese would be helpful.”
"Sure," Henry agreed, maybe a little too quickly-Key scoffed under his breath, leaning over to doodle a large heart on Jonghyun's paper. Amber, luckily, didn’t hear any of it, as she was already out of the room heading for her desk to get started on her research, but Henry gave them both a glare as he gathered his things up and headed after her. If looks could kill, Siwon thought, I'd be out two team members.
Eeteuk stared after her. “I haven’t even decided who will do what yet.”
“Best to just let her get on with it,” Siwon advised. He pointed at Jonghyun, who grabbed Key’s arm as if to claim him for a partner. “No way,” said Siwon firmly. “I want you to do surveillance, see if you can find out where this market is operating from.”
“But-” began Jonghyun, only to be interrupted by a crash as the door to the meeting room flew open and someone tripped over a errant chair leg and fell against the table.
"Hi, sorry, sorry, hi, I'm here, sorry," Onew said, bowing deeply (and repeatedly) while simultaneously trying to right the chair he'd knocked over. "I guess I turned off my alarm or something, so it didn't wake me up! Ha ha... but I'm here now, what did I miss?"
“Everything,” said Key bluntly.
Onew looked up for the first time and noticed everyone giving him looks which ranged from exasperated (Eeteuk) to outright scorn (Key). Then he noticed that two of the team were missing and his face fell. “Oh,” he said.
Siwon, on his way past, pressed a folder into his hands. “Read this,” he said. “See Eeteuk if you have any questions. I’m going to get some more very strong coffee.”
"If you don't shut up," Heechul said, "I am going to stab you in the eye with your goddamn pen.”
“Someone’s touchy,” Hankyung said, grinning at Heechul from his relatively safe distance across the table. “What’s wrong, did someone piss in your non-fat cereal this morning?”
Heechul would have lunged across the table for him if Zhou Mi hadn’t chosen the perfect time in which to waltz into the room holding a tray of Starbucks, sailor hat perched jauntily atop his head. He placed them in the center of the table, as if just knowing that they could be disrupted was enough of a deterrent. "Ceasefire?" he said, smiling encouragingly at Heechul (though he also did so from a distance).
"Half-caf soy sugar-free vanilla latte?" Heechul asked.
"Of course."
"You're granted temporary exemption from my wrath," Heechul said, leaning forward to take his drink. Hankyung muttered something underneath his breath that Heechul rather impressively ignored. Instead he pushed his chair back and leaned through the open window to shout, “Are any of you fuckers coming in here so we can start this meeting or can I just go home already?”
"Aw, oppa," Luna said, smiling seraphically as she made her leisurely way over toward the table. "You sound like you didn't get any last night~"
Hankyung choked on his espresso and doubled over, coughing. As he walked to his seat, Kyuhyun whacked him helpfully on the back, then sat down, lay his head on the table, and drifted off to sleep. When Luna reached over to poke him awake, Zhou Mi waved her away. “He was awake all night,” he admonished.
“Working on what?” asked Heechul, raising an eyebrow.
“Uh, nothing. He was playing video games.”
“Then I have no sympathy. Just pour his coffee over his head and wake him up.”
"What a waste of good coffee," Jessica said, tapping her fingernails lightly on the table next to Kyuhyun's head. When it didn't do anything-as they'd all known it wouldn't-she slammed her palm down on the tabletop, making a loud slapping sound that jerked Kyuhyun instantly awake. "Yah!" she said, then smiled sweetly, tucking Kyuhyun's hair behind his ear. "Good morning, Kyuhyun-oppa."
"I think I hate you," Kyuhyun said.
“I’m sure the feeling is mutual,” said Heechul. “Has anyone seen Sungmin?”
"Briefly," Hankyung said. "Around nine this morning. He looked like a zombie, if that helps."
“He might be sleeping in the stationary cupboard,” Jessica said. “Again.”
"Sometimes Sungmin reminds me of a small woodland creature," Zhou Mi observed, contemplating the lid of his coffee cup. "He... nests. In strange places."
Heechul got to his feet, hissing colorful curses under his breath as he left the room to search for Sungmin. They heard the slide of the stationary cupboard door being opened and then closed, then a bang as Heechul checked he wasn’t behind the photocopier, and then he came back into the meeting room.
“No sign of him.”
“How long do we wait before we send out a search party?” Hankyung asked. Kyuhyun had fallen back asleep, so Hankyung reached across and snagged his coffee. "Or should we just skip the search party and start dividing his stuff up?"
“I call his porn collection,” Heechul said, sticking his hand in the air.
“He has a porn collection?” Zhou Mi asked, curious.
“I’ve never seen it but I’m sure it exists.” Heechul shrugged. “And I mean, look at him. With an innocent exterior like that? That stuff is going to be kinky.”
“For the record,” said Sungmin, walking through the door, “the day you get your hands on my porn collection is the day hell freezes over.”
“Then it’s unfortunate for you that I don’t believe in hell,” Heechul replied.
Sungmin ignored the comment, just grabbed the last coffee still left on the table and drank at least a third of it in one go. "Okay!" he said, clapping his hands together and smiling in a way that would have looked adorable if it wasn't for the dark circles under his eyes. "Let's get started."
"You have twenty minutes," Heechul said.
"Only twenty?" Sungmin blinked. "Why?"
"My attention span is only thirty minutes long, and you wasted ten of them with your woodland creature nesting habits," Heechul said, giving Sungmin an appraising glance over the lid of his coffee. "So, twenty."
Sungmin didn’t look like he could last twenty minutes on his feet anyway, but he just nodded in determination and handed out stapled booklets. “I managed to intercept some information about a new assignment that is being given to the NIS. I was all set to overlook it because it’s just something about black market ties to China but I did some digging and found something interesting.”
“Ties to China?” Hankyung asked, looking through his booklet. “The Tai Zi Tang gang? Sungmin, they don’t even exist anymore.”
“Yeah, really not important,” said Heechul. “What was the interesting part?”
“Well, there’s some talk of something about to be smuggled into Korea. Some sort of new technology, potentially a new type of weapon. Probably just some blueprints for something that’s being developed in China right now.”
"I'm still waiting for the part where you tell us why we care," Heechul said.
“We care because if NIS gets to it before us, that technology will fall in their hands. We don’t know what this is, exactly, but it’s big enough to be causing some ripples. We can’t let something this big fall into NIS hands, not when they’re under the control they’re working under right now.”
"One of these days," Jessica said, "you're going to have to explain what your grudge against the NIS is." She examined her thumbnail, then propped her chin up in one hand, elbow on the table. "We like you, Sungmin-oppa, really, but we can’t trust you blindly."
“One of these days,” Sungmin said vaguely, “but right now our priority is making sure that we complete this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Find out when and how this is being smuggled into the country, who is getting it, and then destroy it.”
“Aye aye, captain,” said Zhou Mi, apparently thrown into sailor mode thanks to the hat he was wearing.
“Do you want us to sleep before or after we finish doing your dirty work,” Heechul grumbled, picking his booklet up between forefinger and thumb and holding it like it was diseased. Anything longer than one side of paper was too much reading in Heechul’s books.
Sungmin pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes briefly. "The less you talk, the faster it gets done," he said, his tone almost hopeful-like he was expecting that to actually convince Heechul to stop complaining. "Just-please do this, Heechul, and you can get back to your beauty sleep or whatever as soon as possible."
“Alright, keep your hair on,” said Heechul, getting to his feet. He dragged Hankyung up and pulled him out of the room, saying something about gang research and how there was a reason that they kept a Chinese man in the office after all.
“Speaking of beauty sleep,” Sungmin said, “could someone please wake Kyuhyun up?”
Helpfully, Luna kicked Kyuhyun under the table. Unfortunately, she caught the wrong angle, because all that happened was that Kyuhyun slid off his chair onto the floor, where he stirred, rolled onto his back, and blinked up at Zhou Mi. "I'm getting the feeling that you're all conspiring against me actually sleeping ever again," he mumbled, apparently contemplating the relative benefits of struggling into a sitting position versus just staying on the floor. "Just leave me here, please."
"No," Jessica said sweetly, nudging his hip with the toe of her shoe. "Wakey wakey. We have work to do."
“Important hacker work,” Zhou Mi said, leaning down and poking Kyuhyun’s cheek with a finger. “Work that only you can do!”
"Get a temp," Kyuhyun suggested.
Sungmin imitated answering a phone. "Hi, I need someone to fill in for my expert hacker ex-con employee who keeps falling asleep on the job?" He made a face at Kyuhyun. "It just doesn't have that ring to it, you know?"
"All of you are horrible people," Kyuhyun said, shoving himself into a sitting position and then hauling himself up by holding onto the table. "I hope you all suffer a thousand nights of sleep paralysis and nightmares and if that fails, insomnia."
"Love you too," Luna sing-songed towards Kyuhyun's retreating back.
"Well!" Zhou Mi said, taking the lids off the leftover coffee cups so he could stack them neatly one inside the next. "That was pretty easy, don't you think?"
Sungmin just groaned.